Yeah, it’s all about aligning with wider cassette spacing from what I recall. And I’d argue it’s all somewhat of a byproduct of SRAM’s belief in the future of 1x.
I think SRAM’s switch from “traditional” 53/39, 52/36, 50/34 came at the same time they transitioned to the XDR hub with 10t cog on the cassette (and I think had a 36t cog option on the low end?). You can debate the benefit of a 10t cog in a 2x world, but anything bigger than a 50t chainring becomes kind of silly in most situations with a 10t. And my guess is that SRAM’s vision for 1x is a big part of why SRAM moved to the wider cassette philosophy. You could say SRAM saw 1x coming or just pushed it on the market, but it’s obviously turned out really well for them. When they made the gearing philosophy change ~6 years ago, how many drop bar bikes were running 1x drivetrains? The rise of gravel was a perfect storm for 1x groupsets.
Still riding clincher GP5000’s with latex tubes. My unpopular opinion is that most road cycling puncture flats are caused by the roadside debris picked up by my tires from the previous ride or two that’s embedded into the rubber until it pops through the casing to the tube during the current ride. So after each ride, I wipe down my tires with a wet rag then use a dental pick to yank out any glass or whatnot that got picked up so it doesn’t have a chance to cause a puncture later on.
This is why I haven’t switched to road tubeless yet. Just jinxed myself… and I’ve wasted a lot of time picking glass out of my tires after rides
This works in cars because often they are built to order, whereas most bikes will be built to an allocated or projected demand, they budget for 100,000 sales of tarmacs a year, and they know the rough breakdown of sizes required. Minimising SKUs is massive in terms of production complexity and cost, they have colours, and size, If we added more, where do you stop?
Imagine specialized did this. for every 54cm tarmac, they sell 3 colours, and they had a variant of handlebar width and stem length. 3 stem lengths, and 3 bar widths, in 38,40,42cm bars, add on crank length in 165/170/172.5, this goes from having to demand plan for 3 specs of bike, to a ridiculous number. and then IF they haven’t got the split exactly right, they end up with loads of 38cm, 175mm cranked tarmacs built in boxes, waiting to sell.
Unfortunately time between manufacture and actual delivery of the product is likely too long to allow this level of customisation. if you wanted to fully customise every bike, youd have to wait probably 6 months, 3 months to plan it into production, and then another 3 months of it sat on a boat around the world.
Some of the smaller brands do it and can ship an “assemble to order” bike in days, it’s just a trade off and would be disruptive to the big OEM’s business model. They are trying to move away from anything supply chain related. They want to get a price from a contract manufacturer in Asia that includes a complete boxed bike based on volume production (which is always going to be the cheapest path). And they eventually want those bikes drop shipped direct to customer and never have to touch a bike, own a warehouse, or deal LBS’s.
Building bikes from square 1 to custom order doesn’t make sense unless it’s very small volume stuff, but “assemble to order” is a pretty common supply chain model and could be a point of differentiation and would help with planning/forecasting. It wouldn’t be that hard, it’s just a big disruptive change for the big boys (and the big component mfg’s also). You’d still have to forecast the frame sizes/colors and volumes to get those in bulk from Asia, but everything else is “just in time” and gets assembled based on real time demand. Lots of industries do it, it just requires some supply chain sophistication to do it in volume. And many of those industries use a hybrid model where the most common combinations might be built to plan/forecast, but others are assemble to order.
And moving toward an assemble to order model could help solve many of the big financial problems in the bike industry where they have to look at their crystal ball and figure out what to build next year. Unit cost would go up a bit, but you’re no longer trying to dump a bunch of excess inventory every year, so margins would improve to offset unit cost increases. But change is hard. Honestly, the move to a “direct to consumer” model they all want is a perfect opportunity to reinvent the supply chain and introduce assemble to order, but I wouldn’t bet on it (at least from the big brands).
it just adds a lot of complexity, supply chain would need to forecast all of the accessory components, it could save the industry, but it would require so much capital to setup.
The build to order model would be a good idea, however if i was a brand, I would want to see the data on whether people are NOT buying because the bikes come with not an ideal length of stem for example. Is that really why people aren’t buying S-works?
Would people pay more for a bike with the right length stem? or are the bikes high enough price that it doesn’t matter what stem it comes with, cos you have 12 grand to spend on a bike, what’s another 3-400 bucks.
I have a feeling the average consumer that is buying an S-works, is more than happy to pay the extra for the correct length stem, better saddle, pedals, etc. a 12 grand bike is never just a 12 grand purchase.
I do think the mid market would benefit from an assemble to order model, I just don’t think the brands care enough to set it up, or hold the stock in each country, hold assembly staff in each country, etc etc.
But they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t build them up like that, they would only build them up when receiving an order.
I disagree with the production timeline. All you are doing is putting on different cranks and cockpits and cassettes. That ain’t 6 + 3 + 3 months. That’s done at build upon order.
There may be economies of scale issues, but not that huge production timelines. Heck, they could upcharge for the customization, or ship the bikes without cassette and crank/chainring. All you’d really need is the cockpit that comes with the bike (though in many cases technically not even that). And for that they can just adjust production as order come in over time and they know what the demand is for each version.
Allied does a pretty nice job of this today. You pick a “base” bike, but have the option to change the things based on your preferences/fit. They get raw frames from China, then do the painting and component assembly based on order. The painting step might be a bridge too far for some brands, but it’s not unlike the project one program from Trek (they paint and allow component selection). Allied is a small brand and obviously premium pricing, but there’s no reason the model couldn’t scale. I do think it aligns nicely with the move toward direct to consumer, but it could also work under an LBS model where the assembly happens at the shop (would avoid the need for brands to stand up assembly locations). And the LBS would help customers pick and choose the right stuff based on need and fit (rather than trying to sell them the “wrong” bike that happens to be on the floor). For the big boys like trek and specialized who own many stores, this seems like it would be a reasonably easy lift to start at those owned locations as a test.
The fact this is done for all bikes, let alone top of the line models reaching upwards of 15k is crazy to me. I would have bought the Epic 8 already but the color I want comes with components I don’t. So I haven’t bought.
I would be interested to hear the counter argument from a business cost perspective. I am sure there is a reason why… I just haven’t heard.
After hearing about such a thing, I find the idea of a ‘sleeveless hoodie’ somewhat compelling. Keep the core warm, and allow for ‘accessorizing’ for extremity warmth, or not. (After a bored canine attack on a beloved sweatshirt, I took the sleeves off and found it really usable. There are days when overdoing the warm clothing is a thing. YMMV)
I really, really like your take on gravel biking. Thanks
I finally got a full sus mtb after being tired of getting beat up on >10 minute fire road downhills on a 40mm gravel bike since 2019; gravel fire road uphills are awesome)
I do think underbiking on a gravel bike translates well to mtb’ing - similar to the prevailing wisdom like 20+ years ago was that everyone’s first mtb should be a hardtail because you learn to pick the smoothest lines and ride dirt properly (out of necessity) before getting a full sus
Not sure whether your “fact” is that people say road riding is very dangerous (true) or the assertion that “road riding is very dangerous and getting more so” (false, and laughably so).
If your opinion is that road riding isn’t very dangerous, then that’s certainly an unpopular opinion… and certainly not a fact.
Not so sure about that. I wouldn’t say road riding is very dangerous. It’s certainly an an activity that comes with risk (and high consequence), but it’s not exactly base jumping. Road racing and crits are relatively dangerous sports, but riding on that road isn’t even in the same discussion as racing. I’ve been in the hospital and had several bad wrecks in crits and road races, which is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total time I spend on the bike. In the last ~16 years of road riding (over 100k miles with a good bit in groups), I’ve been on the ground once from a wet/slippery corner and was unhurt. Knock on wood and all that.
